Deputy publisher of Little, Brown Heather Fain has been appointed to the additional new position of svp, director of marketing strategy, a central marketing function within HBG. She will report to ceo Michael Pietsch for the new role, and he said of the appointment, "The publisher's role as marketer has never been more important. In Heather's 13 years at Little, Brown she has demonstrated constant innovation in marketing and superb partnership with editors, publicists, agents, and authors..... This new approach will allow us to raise our marketing to even greater heights."

The NYT speaks with literary agent Carmen Balcells and comes away with at least some additional details on her pending joint venture deal with Andrew Wylie to form the Balcells-Wylie Agency. "An entity separate from the Wylie Agency," the point of the "proposed" new agency would be to provide a successor agency to the Carmen Balcells Literary Agency, in which the Balcells clients "would come under joint management" with Wylie.

Balcells "said she had approached Mr. Wylie this year" after rebuffing him previously, but the paper concedes "the outline of the deal remains unclear, and there is always a chance that Ms. Balcells could change her mind."

Literary agency Alive Communications has hired Lisa Jackson, former associate publisher of Tyndale, and Brian Thomasson (a senior editor at NavPress) to join the Colorado Springs-based firm as agents. President Rick Christian said in the announcement, "We needed to bolster our team to five full-time agents to take advantage of the incredible book, epublishing, and film opportunities coming our way."